SEO glossary

A permanent redirect that passes ranking power from one URL to another.

Tools and techniques that attempt to identify AI-generated content.

Web crawlers used by AI companies to gather training data from websites.

Google's AI-generated summary that appears at the top of some search results.

Text description of an image for accessibility and SEO purposes.

The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink.

The clickable text in a hyperlink that describes the linked page.

The percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page.

Percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page.

Links pointing to pages that no longer exist (404 errors).

The preferred URL for a page when multiple URLs contain similar content.

Content Delivery Network - distributed servers that deliver content from locations near users.

Core Web Vital measuring visual stability as content loads.

Systematic review of all website content to evaluate performance and quality.

A central resource page that organizes and links to related content.

Planning, creating, and managing content to achieve business goals.

Reusable page structures for generating consistent content at scale.

Google's metrics for measuring user experience: loading, interactivity, and visual stability.

The number of pages Googlebot will crawl on your site in a given time period.

The process by which search engines discover and fetch web pages using bots.

The percentage of users who click your result after seeing it in search results.

Using data to inform and scale SEO strategy and content decisions.

A metric predicting how likely a domain is to rank in search results.

Substantially similar content appearing on multiple URLs.

Identical or very similar content appearing at multiple URLs.

Content that changes based on data, user context, or real-time information.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness - Google's content quality criteria.

Filter systems that create multiple URL combinations for the same content.

A highlighted answer box that appears at the top of Google search results.

Optimizing content to appear in AI-generated search results and LLM responses.

HTML elements (H1-H6) that define content hierarchy and structure.

Content created primarily to help people rather than to rank in search engines.

Content that satisfies user needs and demonstrates first-hand expertise.

HTML attribute telling search engines which language and region a page targets.

Secure, encrypted version of HTTP that protects data in transit.

Reducing image file sizes while maintaining visual quality for faster loading.

The number of times your page appeared in search results.

The process by which search engines add web pages to their searchable database.

Core Web Vital measuring responsiveness to user interactions.

Links that connect pages within the same website.

A format for implementing structured data using JavaScript Object Notation.

JavaScript-based format for implementing structured data markup.

When multiple pages on your site compete for the same keyword.

The percentage of times a keyword appears relative to total word count.

Words and phrases that users type into search engines to find content.

Deferring the loading of off-screen content until it's needed.

Core Web Vital measuring when the largest visible element finishes loading.

When AI language models mention or recommend your website in their responses.

Specific, longer search phrases with lower volume but higher conversion potential.

Specific, multi-word search phrases with lower volume but higher intent.

An HTML attribute providing a brief summary of a page, often displayed in search results.

Google primarily uses the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking.

Google primarily uses the mobile version of pages for indexing and ranking.

Information an AI model uses to generate responses in a conversation.

Visitors who arrive at your website from unpaid search engine results.

Visitors who find your website through unpaid search engine results.

How quickly a web page loads and becomes interactive for users.

Optimizing content to be cited and recommended by Perplexity AI search engine.

A comprehensive page covering a broad topic that links to related cluster content.

Creating large numbers of SEO-optimized pages programmatically using templates and data.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation - AI systems that retrieve external data before generating responses.

Your page's position in search engine results for specific keywords.

Your website's position in search engine results for specific keywords.

How easy content is to read and understand.

Forwarding one URL to another, passing users and link equity.

CSS and JavaScript files that delay page rendering until they're downloaded.

A file that tells search engine crawlers which URLs they can access on your site.

The underlying goal or purpose behind a user's search query.

Optimizing content around topics and meaning rather than just keywords.

Search Engine Results Page - the page displayed after a search query.

XML file listing all pages you want search engines to index.

Standardized code format that helps search engines understand page content.

Standardized code format (like JSON-LD) that helps search engines understand content.

Pages with little or no unique, valuable content for users.

Pages with little valuable or unique content for users.

The HTML element that specifies the title of a web page, displayed in search results and browser tabs.

Content strategy that organizes pages around a central pillar page and related subtopics.

Time To First Byte - how long until the browser receives the first byte of response.

The time between requesting a page and receiving the first byte of response.

Query strings that modify page content or track user behavior.

A file listing all important URLs on your website for search engines.

A search where users get their answer without clicking any result.